Sylvia Huot’s work is a timely and important investigation of giant figures in medieval French literature. There have been other explorations of nonhuman and mythological entities, like Isabel Habicht’s monograph on medieval French and German dwarfs (2012). French giants, however, have not had quite such an in-depth discussion. It is, therefore, a pleasure to receive this excellent study on the topic.

Huot’s introduction lays down the painstaking methodological framework in which she discusses the human, nonhuman, monstrous, and othered statuses of the giants and giantesses of French narratives. While her focus is predominantly on Arthurian works, her interpretations range from religious aspects—giants as converts or non-Christian opponents—to gender. The methodology is wonderfully precise and comprehensive. The theoretical discourse is especially useful for academics in expanding the notions of monstrosity and humanity within medieval and early modern literature. Using Jeffrey Cohen’s book On Giants as an inspiration in chapter 1, Huot meticulously examines the giant’s nonhuman and human status. While chapter 1 continues to define the giant’s human and inhuman nature within medieval narrative, chapter 2 homes in on the intersection of race, class, and culture. Chapter 3 presents the homosocial bonds between knights and giants within the nexus of violence. Inextricably linked with each other, the combat between humans and giants serves different purposes. Huot divides this chapter very aptly into various violent, combative encounters: as a show of masculine virility, as a battleground of erotic and courtly love, and, inversely, the desire of giants for human love, including the comic possibilities of giant encounters in the Conte du Papageau. This division opens the discussion for questions of sexuality, normative and nonnormative gender identities, miscegenation, and courtly love.

Chapters 4 through 6 are concerned with the giant’s status within the human world and his ability to control his actions and the world around him. Huot analyzes the existence of giants, in the prose Tristan and other works, as analogies “with medieval European perceptions of the rival culture of Islam” (155). She argues that the confluence of courtly and religious ideals shows the ideological backdrop in which giants are used. Here she weaves an elaborate picture of giant desire for humanity and the same desire of humans for their gigantic opponents. Her argument that this falls along gendered lines is an astute observation. The giant is not part of the human cultural sphere. However, the giantess can be shaped within its confines.

In chapter 5, as before, Huot takes considerable care to differentiate between different types of religious identities that giants inhabit. Her analysis of Galehot, Palamedes, and Saladin show the various uses of religious outsiders. The giant’s interactions with the human world are one of extremes. Huot touches upon the problematic of isolation and assimilation. Chapter 6 is concerned with the objectification of the giant’s figure along colonial and racial discourses. Based on Derrida and Lacan, Huot argues for a “fatal attraction” (240) between knight and giant, at once other and same. However, her analysis is more far reaching, and she traces the changing interpretations of the giants’ mythological and demonic origin from Augustine to French romances. I especially admire her inclusion and discussion of giantesses. The elevated status of giants within most narratives does not come as a surprise, but Huot argues for a complexity that the giantess lends to the story—at once seductress, opponent, heathen, penitent convert, and monster. The giantess evades classification and instead shows the diverse strands of political, religious, and racial discourses of the narratives.

This work situates the humanity and inhumanity of the giant in the larger academic discussion on monstrous entities in medieval literature. Although Huot focuses very precisely on French romance, her interpretations and extrapolations have wider ranging impact. Her discussion of race, gender, and class, specifically, can be applied not only across genres, but placed within a medieval and early modern European context. It is a well-timed work, a pleasure to read, and will expand the discussion on giants and other monsters of medieval literature.